The year 2025 has been a transformative chapter in our company’s history, defined by what can only be described as a remarkable turnaround. After facing significant headwinds, we have emerged resilient, with a strong leadership position that is ready to shape Sri Lanka’s emerging digital landscape.
The year 2025 has been a transformative chapter in our company’s history, defined by what can only be described as a remarkable turnaround. After facing significant headwinds, we have emerged resilient, with a strong leadership position that is ready to shape Sri Lanka’s emerging digital landscape.
First amongst our achievements was an operational turnaround that saw us reverse erosion of market share; achieved through shifts in strategy, proactive engagement with partners, and decisive action from our leadership and operational teams.
Concerted efforts enabled us to arrest the continuous loss of mobile connections experienced over the last 18 months, and regain a positive growth trajectory in both operational and revenue terms. This and other operational developments during the year saw Group profits surge. We achieved a staggering 221% YoY increase in profits, growing from LKR 3.1 Bn. to LKR 10 Bn. The Group recorded an overall revenue growth of 2.7%, driven by growth in the mobile segment and expansion of our fixed-line services.
Part of the Group’s strategic focus for the year was aimed at restoring financial stability, developing our expertise and organisational capacity for future success, and leading Sri Lanka’s technological growth arc.
We made significant strides in fortifying our group financial position; reducing our group debt burden from 91 billion to 76 billion over the last year and improving organisational cash flows, even as the Group’s transformation and restructure continued to gather momentum. We were also successful in settling long-standing salary anomalies, rewarding the dedication of our workforce by issuing our highest bonus in many years.
Throughout this year, SLT-Mobitel has been at the forefront of Sri Lanka’s digital transformation, supporting both National and grassroots initiatives to adopt new technology, drive innovation, and usher in the digital economy.
Another priority was achieving and maintain an unparalleled level of service quality for our customers and the Country. This commitment was put to the ultimate test when the devastating cyclone swept through many parts of our Island toward the latter part of the year.
Despite the scale and impact of the cyclone, our robust regional structure enabled us to re-establish critical connectivity points within 48 hours, and restore mobile network uptime to over 95% within a week. Beyond connectivity, we stood by our communities with support for healthcare and recovery in their time of greatest need.
The Group’s operational turnaround, steady financial performance, bolstered balance sheet, continued technological leadership, and unwavering service excellence ensure we are well-positioned for the exciting next phase of our growth.
Engineering a Financial and Market Recovery
Our primary objective for 2025 was to secure our financial future while reversing the persistent erosion of our market share, for which we employed a financial strategy defined by strict discipline and aggressive deleveraging.
I am proud to report that we have significantly reduced our Group’s debt burden from LKR 91 Bn. to LKR 76 Bn. over the last year, a move that has provided the stability needed for long-term organisational health.
Additionally, high collection ratios, tight credit control, and efficient working capital management have further bolstered our cash flows, allowing us to fund critical operations internally while preparing for the next investment cycle.
This financial resilience was supported by a rigorous focus on asset monetisation and cost optimisation. Our Facility Management division successfully transitioned from a cost centre to a profit centre, contributing approximately LKR 1 Bn. to the Group’s bottomline by monetising underutilised assets. Notably, our Waste-to-Cash initiative proved particularly successful, proving that sustainability and profitability can go hand-in-hand.
On the commercial front, we effectively addressed an 18-month period of connection losses that had seen our mobile market share decline significantly. By decisively shifting our marketing strategies and proactively engaging with our partners and customers, including through roadshows and strategic campaigns, we successfully restored growth. New connections have now exceeded disconnections for six consecutive months.
Supporting these market gains is our ongoing commitment to operational excellence, where we are pursuing IT and network convergence to streamline internal processes and significantly lower operational expenditures.
Uncompromising Quality of Service
Achieving top-tier service quality was a non-negotiable priority during the year 2025, with our commitment to excellence validated by global benchmarks and national recognition. Measured by OOKLA, Mobitel was recognised as the best network in Sri Lanka during Q4 of 2025. Continued network improvements have enabled us to be almost 30% faster than our competitors in some areas.
The resilience of our network was tested and proven during the cyclone in the Q4 of 2025. In many affected areas, we were the only active network, which not only supported national disaster relief efforts but also supported existing and new customers who sought reliability when it mattered most.
Technological Leadership
Our long-standing commitment to National technological leadership is closely aligned with our ongoing organisational transformation from Telco to Techco. The year 2025 saw the Group cement its position as the undisputed technology leader in Sri Lanka by spearheading numerous national initiatives and hackathons nationwide. This builds on all of SLT-Mobitel’s ongoing work, through collaborative partnerships with universities and schools, to build a strong technology and innovation ecosystem and foster the next generation of tech talent.
A historic milestone in our technological journey was the commercial launch of 5G in December 2025, reinforcing our readiness to support the company’s next phase of digital transformation. Building on learnings from our pilot projects in major cities during the previous years, this launch positions SLT-Mobitel to capture high-value consumer segments as we plan to introduce next-generation 5G services in the coming year.
Advancing National Leadership
SLT-MOBITEL’s commitment to technological leadership and innovation reached several important milestones during the year. Our efforts to strengthen network quality and customer experience received global recognition, with Ookla naming Mobitel the “Best Mobile Network in Sri Lanka”. Mobitel was also recognised as the “Best Brand” in Sri Lanka by LMD during the latter part of 2025, reflecting growing consumer confidence and the strengthening of our market presence.
During the year, we also played a leading role in shaping Sri Lanka’s emerging digital ecosystem. In collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Economy, SLT-MOBITEL successfully hosted the Country’s National AI Conference, bringing together global experts, innovators, academia, and industry leaders to foster greater awareness, adoption, and innovation in Artificial Intelligence. This was complemented by regional AI programmes and technology initiatives aimed at driving digital inclusion and nurturing the next generation of innovators.
Valuing
our Employees
At the heart of our turnaround is a balanced approach to stakeholder engagement, with a particular emphasis on the people who power our success. Alongside programmes that prioritise employee well-being, we settled long-standing salary anomalies and issued the highest bonus in years. Investing in the strength of our human capital, we are reviewing recruitment and promotion processes that have remained largely remained unchanged for 25 years, with an eye to better alignment with the demands of our industry.
We are actively pursuing HR convergence - creating agile teams from across the Group for innovation and high-tech projects like AI development. To support this, our training arm, the Nebula Institute of Technology, introduced new programmes in Robotics and Data Science, ensuring we build a future-ready talent pool. Our ongoing Smart Employee and Smart Technician programmes, which serve to reskill and upskill the workforce, continue to produce results as we gear our staff and organisation to stay relevant in a digital-first economy.
Navigating Challenges and the Path Ahead
While celebrating our successes, we remain mindful of the hurdles that lie ahead. The mobile market is saturated and volatile, requiring us to be aggressive in attracting and retaining customers.
Furthermore, we are entering a critical 5G investment cycle, which needs to be balanced against expanding and upgrading of our core network, following almost five years without major investment. To support this, we continue to lobby for a more business-friendly regulatory environment, including the need for a unified license, refarming of lower-band frequencies for 5G, and the ability to sunset legacy 2G and 3G networks to reduce operational costs involved in maintaining the infrastructure for multiple networks in parallel. Whilst leading the market with supportive products and incentives to accelerate adoption of new technology, we are also working with government partners and industry regulators, supporting and facilitating customer migration to newer technologies that are foundational to the formation and growth of a digital economy.
Part of creating and maintaining a future-ready network is the need to assess climate risks and integrate climate considerations into our infrastructure decisions. Having set our sights on achieving Net-Zero carbon emissions by 2045, we will continue to expand our renewable energy generation capacity. We will also explore internal options for energy efficiency and external opportunities such as infrastructure-sharing, which could unlock significant operational efficiencies and result in energy-saving on a large scale.
Modernising our infrastructure will involve continuous optimisation of our submarine cable infrastructure to meet rising demand, while addressing the high power-requirements of data centres. In order to ensure transparency and accountability in all strategic investments and decision-making, we are also committed to maintaining rigorous oversight through Board subcommittees, with a dedicated focus on risk management for all new projects.
Conclusion
Our remarkable turnaround in 2025 was not the result of a single action, but the collective resilience of an entire ecosystem. I must first express my deepest gratitude to our employees: your dedication during our technological shift, commitment to serving Sri Lanka’s digitalisation needs, and swift actions in restoring networks following the recent disaster were truly extraordinary.
I also extend my sincere thanks to our leadership team and Board of Directors for their disciplined oversight, which has given our Group a strong and stable footing for the direction we will take in the years to come.
To our customers, thank you for your unwavering trust and loyalty. It is our privilege to be your digital pulse, and we are excited to continue expanding and improving our offering to meet your needs in the years ahead.
Our success is shared with a wide network of partners who supported our vision. Your support was the catalyst for our remarkable turnaround this year, and will be instrumental in keeping Sri Lanka connected, innovative, and resilient.
We move into 2026 as a recognised technology leader, characterised by financial stability and a redefined corporate image. Having fortified our balance sheet and instated steps to reinforce our market position, we stand ready to support the next chapter of Sri Lanka’s digital journey.
Chairman SLT Group